Edged Blade by J.C. Daniels Page B

the other side of the room in a blink.
    Swearing, I spun around.
    The milk was starting to steam, but suddenly, I didn’t want it. Hot chocolate wasn’t going to do it. I hit the button to turn off the heating element. Fury pulsed, twisted and pounded within—but it wasn’t just fury.
    He’d treated me with kid gloves the past few months. Yes, part of me had appreciated the patience…at first.
    But I was coming out of my skin and I needed him. I didn’t know what to do about it, though, and this indecision was killing me. I didn’t know how to handle it—or him.
    “Kit, I…”
    “Don’t.” The word ripped out of me with a viciousness that stunned me. “Just don’t .”
    I spun on my heel and stalked toward him. “You know what?” I slammed the heel of my hand against his chest. He didn’t even budge. I did it again and my lack of ability to make him move infuriated me. “Just get out. You hear me? If you can’t stand to be around me and treat me like a real person then just get the hell out !”
    The fury inside me was a beast and I couldn’t make sense of it.
    Damon’s eyelids flickered.
    He inclined his head and then turned on his heel.
    “Yeah,” I sneered at his retreating back. “You go ahead and run.”
    I sounded insane . I’d just told him to go.
    He stopped right where he was and dropped his head. “You told me to go. I’m just doing what you want.”
    “You don’t know what I want!” I shouted.
    With a half-scream, I turned away and left the room before I made myself look anymore the fool. I was going to blister my skin off in the shower. And maybe try to relieve some of the pent-up frustration in there as well, since Damon still didn’t know how to handle touching me.
    But when I went to slam the door, a heavy hand stopped me.
    My breath caught in my throat as Damon came inside.
    “It seems to me that you want to fight,” Damon said after I’d backed myself up against the sink.
    “Do not.” Oh. That sounded mature. I folded my arms over my chest and jutted my chin up. “Well, maybe I do, but you only have yourself to blame. You have no business interrogating me over things that connect to my work.”
     
    His eyes narrowed as he reached up and cupped my chin. “No right…” His thumb swept over my bottom lip and it sent a shiver through me. He noticed, too. His pupils spiked. “You got any idea what it did to me to see you standing in the parking lot here, alone with a vampire, baby girl?”
    Under that flat tone was a world of pain and my heart clenched.
    “Abraham wasn’t here to hurt me,” I said, reaching up to curl my hand around his wrist.
    “Oh, I know that. Allerton’s one of the few that I don’t immediately want to skewer. Well, not until I saw him near you. But it still put me in a bad place, Kit.”
    Closing my eyes, I pulled my chin out of his grasp. “I can’t live the rest of my life worrying about whether my job will put you in a bad place, Damon.” I was having a hard enough time not getting in a bad place myself .
    He was so close I could feel his breath mingling with mine and the scent of him swam in my head, making me drunk.
    Too much…too much .
    Unwittingly I opened my eyes and found myself staring at his mouth. In self-defense, I spun around and stared at the woman in the mirror in front of me, the one who I sometimes still hated. A year ago, I could have turned to the man behind me and reached for him. That was the one thing I wanted to do—the one thing I needed.
    “You said I don’t know what you want,” he murmured, his mouth now pressed to my ear.
    I suppressed a shiver.
    “I think I do know. I’m just not sure if I know how to give it to you anymore.”
    The uncertainty in his voice made my throat knot up.
    “I just want you,” I whispered.
    His patience was killing me.
    His patience.
    My fear.
    I focused on the woman in the mirror, the woman who so often still seemed like a stranger. Tonight, it was even more so. Her green